1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to information recording methods and apparatuses, and more particularly to a method of recording information (data) in an information recording medium, an information recording apparatus suitable for performing the method, and a recording medium in which a program employed in the information recording apparatus is recorded.
2. Description of the Related Art
Optical disks such as CDs (compact disks) and DVDs (digital versatile disks) have attracted attention as information recording media for recording data, so that optical disk units have been widely used as information recording apparatuses for recording data in optical disks.
Recordable CDs include CD-Rs and CD-RWs, and recordable DVDs include DVD-Rs, DVD+Rs, DVD-RWs, and DVD+RWs. Data are recorded in and reproduced from those recordable CDs and DVDs in compliance with their respective predetermined standards.
According to the DVD+R standard, in order to access a recording start position on a disk at high speed, the user data area is divided into multiple partial areas each of 640 ECC blocks, and recorded area indicators (RAIs) storing information (maximum 256 items) indicating whether the corresponding partial areas are areas in which recording has been performed (recorded areas) are provided as disclosed in, for instance, Standard ECMA-349 Data Interchange on 120 mm and 80 mm Optical Disk using +R Format-Capacity: 4.7 and 1.46 Gbytes per Side 2nd Edition (June 2004). When data is recorded in the user data area, information indicating that a partial area including the area in which the data is recorded is a recorded area is recorded in the RAI area. As a result, with respect to each partial area, it is possible to know whether the partial area is a recorded area.
As optical disks have become more popular, more types of data have been recorded in the optical disks, such as music data, video data, picture data, computer programs, and document data. Further, these data also differ greatly in amount. Accordingly, in some cases, it is necessary to determine with respect to a unit smaller than 640 ECC blocks whether the area is recorded (a recorded area). However, the information of the RAI area corresponds to the size of 640 ECC blocks. Accordingly, in order to determine with respect to a unit smaller than 640 ECC blocks whether the area is recorded, the user data area should actually be searched, thus causing the inconvenience that it takes time to access a recording start position.